Chapter 437: Fake Intelligence
Editor: Atlas Studios
Mu Yangling told the Empress that the West Camp was very poor. “Brother Haoran’s salary and monthly allowance aren’t enough at all. Sometimes, he borrows from Brother Zijin, and sometimes, he has to borrow from me. However, he has a lot of jewelry and antiques that he obtained from the war. But it’s very difficult to exchange those things for money. It’s either that no one wants to buy it, or the buyer would ruthlessly lower the price. Therefore, he’s extremely poor. When we got married, the betrothal gifts he gave me were mostly those things obtained by him and Big Brother Qi. There was almost nothing modern. The only slightly better items were some good fabrics from Brother Zijin’s shop. There was no silver or gold jewelry either. They were all gems, jade, and some wood.”
The Empress’s heart skipped a beat. “Jingzhao Prefecture is the ancient capital of the previous dynasty and a prosperous place. Considering they have seized countless antiques, that’s worth plenty of money.”
Mu Yangling said in amusement, “Your Highness, why are you saying the same thing as my sister-in-law? Indeed, those things can’t be bought even if you have money. But the key is that no one is willing to use money to buy them now. Those things can’t be eaten, so they can only be passed down to future generations. However, seeing as there are wars every few days, who knows if those things can be kept?”
How could those things be measured by money?
The Empress looked at Mu Yangling with disdain.
A palace maid behind her served the Empress a cup of tea. The Empress came back to her senses and said with a smile, “Ah Ling, you must be coaxing me. Even if those things can’t be exchanged for silver, he shouldn’t be so poor as to borrow money from you, right?”
Mu Yangling complained, “Why not? Qi Haoran’s salary and monthly allowance aren’t much. Putting everything else aside, he has a fondness for precious daggers and expensive horses. Since a fine horse costs nearly 1,000 taels of silver, he has to splurge an entire month’s salary and monthly allowance on one. Once, he spent more than 400 taels of silver on a short dagger for me. He didn’t have enough money, so he could only snatch Wu Jin’s money. Because of this, Magistrate Wu went to Big Brother Qi to complain. Big Brother Qi hung him up and beat him up for two days.”
Of course, that was not the case. The truth was that when a large number of refugees surged into Xingzhou Prefecture back then, Qi Xiuyuan’s recruitment of troops resulted in an emergency shortage of military rations. Everyone ran out of food, but as long as they made it through another seven to eight days, they would be able to harvest the crops. Just as Qi Xiuyuan was wondering if he needed to borrow money from loan sharks to buy grains, Qi Haoran directly brought people to “borrow” grains from the grain warehouse of Xingzhou Prefecture. When he returned, he happened to bump into Wu Jin. Afraid that he would shout and cause a storm in the city, he arrested Wu Jin and found more than 400 taels of silver after searching him.
When Magistrate Wu came to look for his son, Qi Xiuyuan promised to make up for what he took from the grain warehouse after the autumn harvest, but the grains that had been snatched back by Qi Haoran naturally went into the storeroom of the West Camp.
Magistrate Wu naturally did not agree to let it go, and Qi Xiuyuan was forced into a corner. If word got out, it might escalate into a serious matter. The lightest punishment for his younger brother’s crime of robbing the grain warehouse would be exile. If this blew up, it would even involve the entire Qi clan.
Fortunately, Magistrate Wu also knew that he would not be in a good position if this matter blew up, so he could only suppress his anger and negotiate with Qi Xiuyuan.
In order to shut him up, Qi Xiuyuan could only hang Qi Haoran up and beat him up. In order to make the act look real, he even hung him up for two days. Of course, this was only how it appeared to Magistrate Wu and the others. The truth was that Qi Haoran had only put on clothes covered in whip marks and smeared with rabbit blood when Magistrate Wu came.
The reason was that Qi Haoran had snatched Wu Jin’s money.
Later on, Qi Haoran did use that sum of money to buy a short dagger, but he didn’t give it to Mu Yangling and used it himself. Then, he saved some money to buy a dagger for Mu Yangling.
“If they’re so poor, aren’t the soldiers in the military camp even poorer?”
Smiling, Mu Yangling said, “Your Highness, how can the soldiers in the military camp compare to them? No matter how poor they are, they still wear silk clothes and eat mountain delicacies. There’s enough meat. If they want to eat rice, they can eat rice. If they want to eat steamed buns, they can eat steamed buns. Meanwhile, the soldiers in the military camp are wearing the military uniforms issued from above. Their personal clothes are repeatedly patched and continued to be worn so long as it’s not tattered. They’ll be satisfied if they can have one meat dish every ten days and two pieces of meat in each meat dish.”
The Empress widened her eyes. “Uh, if life is so tough, where did all the military salaries given by the Imperial Court go?”
Li Jinghua, who was originally worried, had long relaxed. She lowered her head and sat at the side. Who said that Mu Yangling was not smart? At least her performance today was better than hers.
Sounding her out?
How could they tell if Mu Yangling was telling the truth? If she didn’t happen to know the truth about this, she would probably believe it without a doubt.
If Mu Yangling could tell 70% of the truth about every matter, maybe that’s fine. However, she was very shrewd. The 70% that she spoke truthfully about consisted of just unimportant stuff, while the most crucial 30% was replaced with fake information. The royal family would be able to find out the general situation with a simple investigation, but they would not know which parts were true. With the previous explanation as a foundation, even the most suspicious person would somewhat believe it.
Li Jinghua was relieved. However, she would secretly glare at her from time to time so that the Empress would misunderstand that she did not want Mu Yangling to reveal these things.
When the Empress saw this, she turned slightly and waved at Mu Yangling. “You know so much. Come, come to my side and tell me.”
Mu Yangling went forward without any restraint. The Empress asked her to sit down with her back facing Li Jinghua. This way, Mu Yangling would not be able to see what Li Jinghua was signaling. “The Imperial Court gives out a lot of military salary every year. Didn’t they receive it?”
The expression of the Emperor behind the screen darkened, but Mu Yangling was overjoyed. She shook her head in confusion and said, “There’s no military salary. My father used to be a section commander and never received a military salary. He only received a military salary after becoming a company commander, but still it’s very little. It’s only five taels of silver a year.”
The Empress frowned. “Did the higher-ups pocket it?”
Mu Yangling tilted her head and thought for a moment, then waved her hand nonchalantly and said, “Who knows? Anyway, Qi Haoran doesn’t have a share, but his salary hasn’t been deducted at all. Big Brother Qi’s salary hasn’t been deducted either, so there are still benefits to having a high official position. Others won’t dare to deduct their salary.”Update by n0vgo.c0
“If there’s no money, what about the armaments?”
“I know that.” Mu Yangling said excitedly, “The West Camp will purchase some and the various divisions will settle the rest themselves.”
As the topic became more and more confidential, the Empress smiled and said, “General Qi must be biased towards Assistant Commander Qi. I heard that he dotes on this younger brother very much.”
“That’s not true. The West Camp’s good military equipment has been sent to the 1st and 2nd Division because they have to be the vanguard in every war. Brother Haoran’s 5th Division is only in charge of taking in the old, weak, sick, and disabled. Less than one-fifth of them have military equipment.”
The Empress narrowed her eyes. “How did you know this? Did Assistant Commander Qi tell you this too?”
“No, I know it myself,” Mu Yangling replied matter-of-factly.
“How can you know them yourself when no one told you these things?” The Empress stared intently at Mu Yangling.
However, Mu Yangling smiled and said, “Because I helped him manage the accounts. Brother Zijin was originally in charge of the logistics in Brother Haoran’s 5th Division, but he had to study and do business, so he no longer had the time for that. The logistics department was extremely corrupt and greedy. He was impatient to check the accounts, so he handed me the accounts and asked me to help him out with it. I often went to the camp to look for him, so I naturally knew…”
“Ah Ling.” Li Jinghua suddenly looked at the Empress with a pale face and said apologetically, “Your Highness, I suddenly feel a little unwell. Perhaps the child in my stomach is making a fuss. Ah Ling, come and help me up.”
Mu Yangling hurriedly went forward to support her. The palace maid who brought tea to the Empress nodded anxiously. Smiling, the Empress said, “Since you’re not feeling well, let Ah Ling bring you to the side hall to rest for a while. The imperial physician will be here soon.”